The province's youth ministry and attorney general have deployed an army of lawyers to keep records filed at an inquest into the suicide of “G.A.” out of the public eye.

A mentally troubled Pickering teen hanged himself in a youth jail that was supposed to protect him.

And now, the province has deployed a small army of lawyers to keep secret all records that could explain how this happened.

The case involves a 16-year-old boy known by the initials G.A., who was sent to Syl Apps Youth Centre in Oakville after a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a social worker determined he had “very serious mental health issues” and needed secure treatment. A judge agreed.

But the teen never made it to the jail’s secure treatment unit, a hospital-like setting. Instead, he was placed in general detention while the facility waited for $3,500 in government funding to complete another court-ordered assessment on the boy, who had been described as everything from paranoid and psychotic to polite and personable. Less than a month after arriving at the facility, and just five days after his 17th birthday, the teen hanged himself with a shoelace on May 13, 2008.

Lawyers for the attorney general and the Ministry of Children and Youth have opposed the Toronto Star’s request to access documents filed at the public inquest investigating the teen’s death. Materials filed so far include psychological assessments — useful because they illustrate a range of opinions on the teen’s condition — and transcripts of the boy’s court appearances outlining his pleas for help.

The inquest began June 8 and is expected to hear from nearly 40 witnesses.

Coroner’s inquests, typically very public, are called to probe deaths and make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Ministry lawyers said they are trying to abide by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The act is aimed at rehabilitating and reintegrating young people into the community, which is why their names and court records cannot be made public. The ministry and attorney general argue the act still holds after death.

But who is it protecting?

Last week, a lawyer representing the ministry and attorney general’s office argued the Star should not even be allowed to see a court order that supposedly explains why the paper and the public have no right to access any of the exhibits entered as evidence at the inquest.

“In our view, they fall within the definition of a record under the Youth Criminal Justice Act,” said provincial lawyer Heather MacKay.

On Monday, presiding coroner Dirk Huyer said the Star was entitled to view the court order with the teen’s name blacked out.

Huyer said in his ruling the order would “be of benefit to the (Toronto Star) in clarifying or assisting with any further application for access to exhibits submitted during the inquest into the death of G.A.”

MacKay protested.

She asked for and received a two-day stay of Huyer’s decision so she could consult with Attorney General Chris Bentley to discuss whether the province would seek a judicial review of the coroner’s ruling.

The inquest has heard that G.A. came to Canada at age 11 with his sister and parents from Kazakhstan, where he was a gifted student who excelled at math. He practised judo, karate, rock climbing and gymnastics.

Within days of arriving in Canada, his parents separated — something that had been planned without the children’s knowledge.

Both parents found new partners and the siblings split time between their homes in Ajax and Pickering.

When his sister started using drugs, the inquest heard the teen was devastated at losing what he felt was his last role model.

By the time he started Grade 9, G.A. started to experiment with alcohol and fell behind at school.

He was sent to Brookside Youth Centre in Cobourg in January 2008, after pleading guilty to assaulting his 23-year-old sister.

At Brookside, the youth told psychologist Dr. John Satterberg, who is now retired in Newfoundland, that he wanted “to straighten out his thinking.” He said he heard voices.

At their next session, G.A. seemed like a different person, the inquest heard.

The psychologist, frightened, ended the session abruptly after the teen kicked the table and lifted it off the floor.

“In the interview today, he became more and more bizarre, speaking in gibberish,” according to a note made by the psychologist, which was shown to the inquest jury. The doctor recommended that G.A. be returned to the secure isolation unit, also known as segregation or solitary confinement.

This is not the first time a young person has died in custody in Ontario.

An inquest recommended the use of segregation cells be abolished after 16-year-old James Lonnee’s death at Guelph’s Wellington Detention Centre in 1996. They are still in use.

The degrading life — forced by inmates to eat feces from a toilet and lick spit off the floor — and death of 16-year-old David Meffe at the Toronto Youth Assessment Centre resulted in the facility’s ultimate closure.

More recently, the Star has been covering the case of Ashley Smith, a young woman who died in a Kitchener prison after being moved from jail to jail across the country. Smith, 19, whose death is also the focus of an ongoing inquest, had psychiatric issues which her family feels were not addressed by the federal prison system.

The Smith inquest, which started in May, has been derailed by legal arguments around access to exhibits. Those proceedings resume on Tuesday.

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